


A friend in the dark

by chezamanda



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Background Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Developing Friendships, Don't copy to another site, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Looking Canon Dead In The Eye Before You Murder It, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 07:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20542532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezamanda/pseuds/chezamanda
Summary: Natasha makes a friend.





	A friend in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> I am just handwaving everything that's happened since Ultron because fuck a bunch of that. 
> 
> This does touch on some PTSD issues as well.
> 
> Thanks to insidious-intent, eiluned, & un-canadien-errant for the beta work!
> 
> Title from this Helen Keller quote (or at least what the internet attributes to her, so hopefully that's accurate lol): "I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."
> 
> Carol's new 'do based on this https://papurrcat.tumblr.com/post/184594778747/i-played-around-with-kris-ankas-design-for

Things had quieted down over the past couple weeks, which was a welcome change. Natasha still had a lot of energy to burn off and found herself in the tower’s gym early every morning. It felt good to focus on pushing her body to its limits than it did to think about how close she had come to the end. But that was another her. Another place. That reality no longer impacted her own. Everything was right side up now; back where it belonged. 

And yet, she couldn’t shake the memories of what she had seen in that other version of their world. So much death and destruction and pain. 

“Morning.”

Natasha looked over to the side and found Carol standing in the doorway in her own set of black workout gear. “Hey.”

“Can’t sleep either?”

She smirked and shook her head. “Not really. Clint suggested I try some sleeping pills, but they haven’t helped.”

Carol nodded, then started adding extra weights to the barbell. “Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him around.”

“Visiting his brother’s family upstate,” Natasha replied, slowing to a jog as the treadmill changed pace. “Not that they know what happened, but I think it rattled him.”

“Rattled all of us.”

Carol gave her a half smile and then settled herself onto the bench, laying flat on her back. She reached up for the bar above her and Natasha opened her mouth to say something. That was a hell of a lot of weight on there, but Carol lifted it with just a small grunt. She had seen Carol fly around _on fire_ and take out beings twice her size with a single hit, so she didn’t know why bench pressing the weight of a small car should surprise her. Turning back to face the wall, Natasha finished the cool down portion of her run.

By the time she finished her run and showered, Carol had already moved onto the cable crossover machine. Natasha was never a fan of that one, but Clint had insisted on adding one to the already well-equipped gym. 

“Got any plans today?” Carol asked when she caught sight of Natasha again.

“Nothing important.”

Letting the cables return to their original position, Carol then let go, rotated her arms and finally shook them out a little. Some of her blonde hair had escaped its confines. She swiped the damp pieces away from her forehead with an annoyed huff.

“Know any place I could get my hair cut? I swear it grows out faster than it used to.”

“Yeah, actually. I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour. I need something to eat and a change of clothes.”

Carol smiled. “Great. See you in an hour.”

After Natasha had gotten some breakfast down and called Clint to check in, she threw on her favorite pair of jeans and an oversized black sweater. She gave a nod to Steve and Bucky as they passed her coming out of the elevator. Everyone seemed to have the same exhaustion in their faces, and she wondered if that would ever go away. It was a secret they all shared. To witness the sheer amount of death and destruction in that other world felt as though it had aged her ten years. Had they failed the mission, it would have become their reality. She took a couple deep breaths, feeling that panic stirring inside of her, and then snapped the hairband she wore on her wrist. It would take time to heal that kind of wound, she realized, but sometimes she wished that she could have the event wiped from her memory.

Carol waited for her at the front door, having changed out of her workout gear and into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and her brown leather jacket. Her hair was still wet from the shower.

“Ready?” she asked. 

“Yeah.”

They took the subway out to Clint’s favorite place in Brooklyn, which had become the team’s go-to place after his glowing recommendation. It was generally more relaxed than some of the salons closer to where they lived. The salon included gender neutral pricing for all of their services which Natasha appreciated.

Carol was still getting used to modern times, not unlike Steve how had to after being thawed out. She didn’t take as many notes, but Carol adapted pretty quickly. Natasha allowed her to borrow her phone so she could look at some hairstyle ideas. 

“Dammit, it disappeared,” Carol complained after looking through a few photos on the search results page.

“Here.” Natasha took the phone back and backed up the browser for her. “You just hit the ‘back’ arrow by accident.”

“Thanks.”

Rye, Clint’s preferred barber, welcomed the two of them when they came in and offered them some coffee which Natasha happily accepted. She sat in the empty station beside Carol while the other two discussed hair.

“What about something like what you’ve got going on. I like that,” Carol said, gesturing to Rye’s undercut (currently dyed black to contrast with their peacock blue and purple hair).

“That’s going to look great on you,” they said with a grin, and wrapped a black cape around the front of Carol.

Clint sent Natasha a text: _hows your girls day going?_

_ **Sparklefists is getting an undercut. You two will match.** _

_knew I liked her - excellent taste_

Natasha bit back a smirk and then pulled up a collection of short stories on her phone’s eBook app. Reading had been another way to deal with her insomnia and nightmares. Escaping her dark, painful memories through reading made for a better alternative than the more destructive ways she had used in the past. 

Before she knew it, Rye dusted off the errant bits of hair from the cape around Carol’s shoulders. They’d shaved one side short and trimmed the rest to make it a little neater. From one angle, it looked like a softer mohawk and from the other, it appeared to be a very short bob. It suited her. 

“This looks amazing. Thank you,” Carol said. She gave Rye an enthusiastic high-five that let off a little spark that made Rye jump a little. “Sorry.”

“She’s like a static electricity rod,” Natasha said with a little laugh.

“No kidding,” they said. “Liam up front can ring you up. Thanks for coming in!”

Natasha paid for the visit, and then they went in search of some lunch. With a light breeze and the sun overhead, it made for a nice day to eat their food truck purchases at a nearby park. Carol kept running her fingertips over the shaved part of her head and smiling to herself.

“You look great,” Natasha commented.

“Thanks. I should probably stop petting myself.”

“Yeah, people are starting to stare,” she replied, deadpan.

Carol’s eyes widened for a moment before she realized Natasha was kidding. “Funny.”

“I have my moments.”

They chatted while they ate their lunches - Natasha had opted for a salad and Carol had gone for some Korean fried chicken which made that salad look sad in comparison. Carol passed her a piece on a napkin with a little wink. It dawned on Natasha that she really didn’t have many women on the team to talk with, though they had added a few over the years. She was friendly with them, but she couldn’t think of a time where she had sat down and shared a one-on-one meal with anyone aside from Clint or Steve. Personal connections, naturally, had been discouraged in her former life. Friendships and romantic relationships were a weakness. Weaknesses got you killed.

That wasn’t her life anymore.

“Is it ever not going to be weird?” Carol said.

“Hm?”

“This,” she replied and motioned at the passers-by around them. “No one knows what happened, but we do.”

Natasha gave a half-hearted shrug. “I suppose not. We just have to learn to deal with it.” 

Carol’s mouth twisted a little as she considered it. “Guess so.”

Silence fell between them as they sat with the thought. Natasha pushed some lettuce around the container. She used to be so much better at boxing up her trauma and tucking it away into the back of her mind, but things had changed over the years. In some ways, she knew it was better to address her problems instead of stuffing everything down. SHIELD had kept a therapist on staff to help, and with some encouragement from Clint, she’d gone to see her on a somewhat regular basis. Natasha wondered if she could find that therapist again or if she had also been involved with the HYDRA infiltration. Any other therapist would think she suffered from delusions if she tried to talk about her experiences. At the very least, she could take the advice from her old therapist and try to apply it.

“If you don’t want to talk about this, it’s cool,” Carol said. “It’s… a lot.”

“Probably not the best thing to talk about in public, but maybe another time?”

“You’re on,” she replied, her eyes crinkling a bit at the edges. “So, you and Hawkeye, huh?”

Natasha chuckled at the change of subject. “Yeah. Few years now.”

“Good for you.”

She smiled. “What about you? Anyone special somewhere out in the galaxy?”

Carol’s expression shifted ever so slightly. “Nothing serious, at least not for a long time.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to….”

She waved her hand. “It’s okay.”

“My turn to change the subject then?” Natasha asked and bumped Carol’s knee playfully, making her smile again.

* * *

Natasha looked up at the doors when they arrived on her floor. “Guess that’s me. Unless you’d like to come in?” She paused a moment. “A movie or something?”

“Not sick of me yet?” Carol teased.

“No,” she said, inclining her head a little. “No, it’s nice hanging out with you.”

Carol wrapped an arm around her shoulder and walked out into the hallway with Natasha. “I’ve got some pop culture catch-up to do. What the hell is Netflix anyway?”

She chuckled. “It’s like a video store that lives in a box attached to your TV.”

“Like Pay-Per-View?”

“Sort of,” Natasha said and unlocked her front door with a code. “Have a seat in the living room, I’ll give you the rundown of Netflix, Prime, and Hulu.”

“There’s more than one?” Carol asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You have much to learn.”

At some point, Carol nodded off on the couch, and Natasha switched the TV off. Easing off the couch, she then draped a soft throw blanket over Carol and went to her bedroom. There was a message from Clint waiting for her after she finished her nighttime routine in the bathroom. She pressed her thumb on the home button to open the message. 

_how was the rest of your day?_

_ **Fun actually. You would be proud - I made a friend.** _

_always proud of you Tasha_  
see you Sunday night  
love you 

_ **Love you too.** _

Natasha smiled at her screen, and then switched it to Do Not Disturb mode. Laying in the dark, her thoughts returned to everything she’d been going through. It was still a lot to cope with, and she toyed at the hair elastic on her wrist. She knew it would take a while to deal with, but her day with Carol had given her some hope. Things were back to normal, such as it was for her, and she had her team back. Carol fit well into their dynamic and was a comforting, supportive presence. Natasha hoped that she planned on sticking around a little longer.


End file.
